Pogue, Times Technology Columnist, Is Leaving for Yahoo

David Pogue, the technology writer for The New York Times, whose columns were among the most popular at the paper, said on Monday that he was leaving for Yahoo to start a consumer-focused technology site.

David Pogue, in 2009 at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco.

In addition to his “State of the Art” column, where he has reviewed new technology products for 13 years, Mr. Pogue created weekly videos for The Times and wrote a blog, Pogue’s Posts, that won a Gerald Loeb award for Distinguished Business Journalism in 2010.

In a statement on his Tumblr site this morning Mr. Pogue wrote: “Thirteen years is a long time to stay in one place; we all thrive on new experiences.”

He then elaborated on his new mission at Yahoo. “I’ll be writing columns and blog posts each week, of course, and making my goofy videos,'’ he wrote. “But my team and I have much bigger plans, too, for all kinds of online and real-world creations.'’

Mr. Pogue always worked for other organizations besides The Times, and while at Yahoo he will continue to keep his outside assignments, which include technology correspondent for “CBS News Sunday Morning,” columnist for Scientific American and the host of a series on technology on the PBS program “Nova.”

Mr. Pogue’s departure comes as technology coverage has become increasingly prized by media companies. Only weeks ago, Walter Mossberg, a leading reviewer of new devices, and his partner Kara Swisher at AllThingsD, said they would be leaving The Wall Street Journal to start a technology writing and conference business with the backing of new partners.

In a memo to the newsroom, Dean Murphy, The Times’s business editor, and Suzanne Spector, the technology editor, wrote that Mr. Pogue’s columns were “a delight to read'’ and wished him well in his new job.

DealBook: Huge Payday for Chief Executive Who Is Leaving Nokia

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Electronic Arts Chief Executive Leaving

The company has named Larry Probst as executive chairman while it searches for Riccitiello's replacement. Probst has been chairman since 1994 and served as CEO from 1991 to 2007, when Riccitiello took over.

"My decision to leave EA is really all about my accountability for the shortcomings in our financial results this year," Riccitiello wrote in a message to EA employees. "It currently looks like we will come in at the low end of, or slightly below, the financial guidance we issued to the Street, and we have fallen short of the internal operating plan we set one year ago. And for that, I am 100 percent accountable."

EA and other traditional video game companies have been trying to adjust to a changing world where consumers are turning to mobile devices and cheap —or free— online games instead of buying expensive packaged titles.

Electronic Arts reported adjusted revenue of $1.18 billion for the last three months of 2012, a 28 percent drop from the same period a year earlier. The figure was below Wall Street's expectations of $1.29 billion.

"John has worked hard to lead the company through challenging transitions in our industry, and was instrumental in driving our very significant growth in digital revenues," Probst said in a statement.

Earlier this month, EA fumbled the launch of a new edition of its iconic "SimCity" franchise. Many gamers were unable to log in to the online game, which prompted some retailers to stop selling it. EA said more players logged in than expected and it offered players a free PC game to compensate.

In a note to investors last week, Pacific Crest Securities analyst Evan Wilson said EA has had its "worst stretch of execution ever" recently. He said holiday season sales of its "Medal of Honor" game were disappointing, and high-profile games released this year have received poor reviews.

Redwood City, Calif.-based EA's stock price took a nosedive in the late summer and fall of 2008 during the financial crisis and has not recovered since. The stock went from trading as high as $61.62 in October 2007 to Monday's close of $18.71. After EA announced Riccitiello's departure, the stock rose 67 cents, or 3.6 percent, to $19.38.

Media Decoder Blog: Hulu's Chief Is Leaving, Raising Questions About Its Future

Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesJason Kilar, the founding chief executive of Hulu, gave no indication why he was moving on.

8:39 p.m. | Updated
Jason Kilar, the Web wizard who turned Hulu from a punch line into a popular source of online video, said on Friday that he would step down as the site’s founding chief executive in the next three months.

The announcement is certain to turn up the volume on something that’s a constant hum in the media industry: speculation about the future of Hulu — and if it has one at all. Its owners, the Walt Disney Company, Comcast and the News Corporation, also run the ABC, Fox and NBC networks, and they do not agree about what to do with the Web site. Perversely, the more popular Hulu becomes, the more of a problem it is for the owners, since it may be taking viewers and advertising dollars away from their core television businesses.

Mr. Kilar never saw it that way, however. He was Hulu’s best advocate, sometimes clashing with the network executives on Hulu’s board and arguing that they had to keep investing in the site, since television’s future will surely involve Internet distribution.

For many Americans, that future is already here: Hulu’s streams of TV shows attract 30 million unique visitors a month via computers and untold millions more via tablets and Internet-connected television sets. Three million pay for Hulu Plus, its subscription arm — not bad for a start-up once ridiculed as “ClownCo.”

Mr. Kilar declined an interview request on Friday. In an e-mail message to employees, he gave no indication why he was moving on or what he might do next. “My decision to depart has been one of the toughest I’ve ever made,” he said.

He said his departure would take effect within the first quarter of the year. No successor was named. Rich Tom, the site’s chief technology officer, will also depart in the first quarter.

Mr. Kilar, a former executive at Amazon, has in the past been mentioned for a number of prominent jobs in Silicon Valley. He was a top candidate last year for the chief executive position at Yahoo, but Hulu said he declined to be considered. The job later went to Marissa Mayer, a longtime Google employee.

His departure comes just several months after the only independent owner of Hulu, Providence Equity Partners, sold its 10 percent stake, originally bought for $100 million, for $200 million. Mr. Kilar and other employees also sold their stakes in the company at that time, netting Mr. Kilar about $40 million, according to an executive with knowledge of the transaction.

On Friday, there was widespread praise for Mr. Kilar for steering Hulu through sometimes turbulent seas. “He defied enormous odds, built from scratch one of the top five digital video brands, created two viable and growing businesses (free and pay) and got his well-deserved payday — not bad for five years’ work,” J. B. Perrette, who used to help oversee NBC’s investment in Hulu and now runs Discovery Communication’s digital operations, said in an e-mail.

That said, Mr. Kilar’s announcement did not entirely surprise many in the industry. During his tenure, he sometimes clashed with the owners on Hulu, exemplifying the divide between new, disruptive modes of distribution like the Internet and the more traditional operations at major media companies. As the parent companies pulled back on the amount of ABC, Fox and NBC programming provided to Hulu, the Web site invested in original content to fill the gaps and attract attention. That investment effort continues, led by one of Mr. Kilar’s deputies, Andy Forssell, but many in the industry say they believe that Hulu’s future remains fuzzy.

An internal memo obtained by Variety in August showed that the owners may want to change their agreements with Hulu so that it is no longer the exclusive distributor of repeats of television shows like “The Office” and “Family Guy.” That way, the owners could also sell repeat rights to online video services like YouTube, Netflix or Amazon.

Some of the owners also wanted more advertisements on the site, which had revenue of about $700 million last year but is not yet believed to be profitable. Much of the revenue came from Hulu Plus, and therein lies another fault line: the owners may concentrate on the paid part to the detriment of the free streaming part.

The owners had no comment about any of that on Friday, though. Robert Iger, Disney’s chief executive, called Mr. Kilar an integral part of the Hulu story and said in a statement, “We are proud of his achievements, we appreciate what he’s built, and we share his confidence in his team’s ability to drive Hulu forward from here.”

This month, Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG Research, predicted that News Corporation would seek to acquire its competitors’ stakes in Hulu in 2013. Comcast, he said, has no managerial control of Hulu and Disney “appears increasingly less interested” in the site.

In August, News Corporation said that Jonathan Miller, the company’s chief digital officer since 2009 and a vocal champion of Hulu, would leave the company. Mr. Miller represented News Corporation on the Hulu board and had helped the media company broker a stake in Roku. And Chase Carey, the No. 2 to the chief executive of News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch, is said to be less enamored with the service.

News Corporation has had some high-stakes stumbles in technology with both Myspace and its tablet-only publication, The Daily, which has led some analysts to expect the company to tread cautiously with future digital investments like Hulu.

Mr. Murdoch, however, praised Mr. Kilar for “building Hulu into one of the leading online video services available today.” He added, “It’s incredibly well positioned for the road ahead.”

DealBook: Levinsohn Confirms That He's Leaving Yahoo

5:44 p.m. | Updated Ross Levinsohn, the executive who served as Yahoo‘s interim chief, confirmed on Monday that he was leaving the tech company after being passed over to fill the spot permanently.

The departure of Mr. Levinsohn was not surprising, after Yahoo named former Google executive Marissa Mayer as its new leader.

In an e-mail to friends reviewed by DealBook, Mr. Levinsohn did not disclose his next steps. But he praised the company as having an “amazing brand” and described his short tenure as interim chief executive as “one of the best experiences of my career.”

His departure comes just two weeks after Ms. Mayer stepped into the role that Mr. Levinsohn assumed would be his own. Mr. Levinsohn ran Yahoo’s media, business development and sales operations and assumed the role of interim chief after Scott Thompson, Yahoo’s last chief executive, left in May amid questions that he had embellished academic credentials on his resume.

As recently as mid-June, Mr. Levinsohn was interviewing candidates for senior positions at Yahoo and telling them that the role of chief executive would be his, according to one person who was interviewed by Mr. Levinsohn but declined to be named because they still work with their current employer.

Mr. Levinsohn had already brought on a few senior hires, including Michael Barrett, a former Google executive who was named as Yahoo’s top advertising revenue manager.

He had also successfully brokered a settlement with Facebook over a patent fight that began under Mr. Thompson, an agreement that included an expanded content partnership.

Yahoo employees had been hoping that Mr. Levinsohn would stay with the company and help run Yahoo in tandem with Ms. Mayer.

“That would have been the best case scenario — Ross is great at running businesses and delivering value to shareholders and Marissa is a product visionary– together those two could be a powerful combination,” said one employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

Here’s a note that Mr. Levinsohn e-mailed to friends:

I wanted to let you know that my time at Yahoo has come to an end. It has been an incredible journey for me and I could not be prouder of what we accomplished over the past few years helping define Yahoo as a leader in digital media and advertising. Yahoo is an amazing brand and company, and I leave knowing we did all we could to help inform and entertain more than 700 million users each month. Leading this company has been one of the best experiences of my career, but it is time for me to look for the next challenge.

Azam Ahmed contributed reporting.